I CONTINUED TO work with Madame Stiles-Allen. Early in my relationship with her, she decided to stop teaching in London and remain in Yorkshire, where her home was. Once she moved north permanently, it became obvious that if my voice was to continue to improve and I was to take my lessons seriously, the only thing I could do was to go up there to study with her. Sometimes it would be for a long weekend, sometimes a full week at a time.
She lived in a rambling, half-timbered farmhouse in a village called Headingly, just outside Leeds. “The Old Farm” had a giant kitchen that doubled as a dining room, with an Aga cooker and a large fireplace. The furniture was old but comfortable, with loose floral-patterned slipcovers on the sofas and chairs. There was an authentic spinning wheel in the big, main hallway, and its spools and treadle, evoking another era, fired my imagination. The halls were lit with gas lamps, their flames sputtering above the tiny gas jets.
A vast, upstairs music room contained bookcases piled high with books and files, her big, grand piano, and an old, hand-cranked phonograph on which we would listen to 78-rpm records of Caruso, Gigli, Galli-Curci, and Adelina Patti. The room wasn’t used much, the main reason being the cost of heating in the bitterly cold, damp winters. There was a smaller teaching room right next to it, with an upright piano and an electric fire, and this was where Madame primarily worked with her students.
My mother would put me on the train, and Madame’s husband, Sidney George Jeffries-Harris, simply known as Jeff, would pick me up at Leeds and drive me out to Headingly. A dapper, retired army man with a small military mustache, Jeff was as diminutive as Madame was large. Though he had served in India and had a sparkling but sardonic sense of humor, one got the feeling that Madame undoubtedly ruled the household. They had a teenage son, Michael, who was a few years older than I.
Madame had a live-in housekeeper, a friend for many years, called Jessie. Although slightly younger than Madame, she was equally large and very robust, with a great sense of humor and a jolly spirit.
Lunch was the main event of the day. Michael would come home from school, and we would all sit around the big square table in the old-fashioned farmhouse kitchen and eat our fill. Jessie cooked enormous meals: mutton stews with large boiled potatoes and peas and carrots.
Jeff brewed his own homemade ginger beer, which Madame adored. It was potent, gaseous stuff, and whenever a bottle was opened, the cork simply exploded out of it. Madame would drain her ginger beer from a tall glass; then, taking the large damask napkin from her lap and putting the corner of it up to her face, she would belch hugely—an enormous “trombone slide” with an actual bass tone to it. She would flutter her long eyelashes and smile sweetly.
“Excuse me!” she’d say demurely.
Sometimes I would sit in on other pupils’ lessons. Madame thought this important, and I did pick up a great deal, just watching and listening. Simply talking with Madame, I would discover that my voice had a better pitch to it. Madame’s voice was so warm and melodious—so exquisitely placed—that I would find my own lifting in imitation.
She once described the joy of singing with a full orchestra: “As if one is being carried aloft in the most wonderfully comfortable arm-chair.” I knew exactly what she meant.
During those lessons, Madame gave me a valuable piece of advice, which has stayed with me over the years.
“Julie,” she said. “Remember: the amateur works until he can get it right. The professional works until he cannot go wrong.”
In the evenings, we’d retire to her small study where there was a fire. She would sit in an armchair on one side of it and Jeff would occupy the chair on the other side, puffing on his pipe and reading. Sometimes Jessie would come in and join us. Madame did exquisite embroidery, which she said helped her to relax. She bought me silk threads and an embroidery frame, put some handkerchief material over it, and taught me to do some basic stitches, which I truly enjoyed. As we embroidered together, we would all listen to the radio or sit and talk.
Quite often, during those evenings, she would counsel me, “When you get older, darling, buy property. You will never lose on property. You can always trade up, and it will always be something to fall back on. It’s a wonderful investment for your money.” I have tried to follow her advice.
When the embers of the fire burned low, Madame and Jeff would go to their bedroom at one end of the house and I would head to mine, going down a long, drafty, gas-lit corridor, to a freezing cold room with a chamber pot under the bed. Once between the sheets, I never dared get out—not merely because of the icy temperature, but because I was convinced that the place was haunted. I would burrow down, hiding, almost suffocating myself. I didn’t sleep much.
I WENT UP to Leeds fairly consistently during my teens. I would return home with my voice fresher and stronger, and my mother would immediately ask me to sing for her so that she could hear if I had improved.
Occasionally Madame would still come down to London, and I’d be able to pick up a quick lesson with her. Once, she stayed with us in Walton. She and my mother indulged in long discussions about spiritualism and particularly reincarnation. Madame believed in it wholeheartedly, and in fact, she felt sure that I was the reincarnation of the famous soprano Adelina Patti. My mother, who was superstitious, liked the thrill of believing reincarnation possible. I was completely spooked by their eerie conversations, and eventually chose not to listen to them, for my nights after that became fraught with the fear that ghosts were coming out of my closet or that someone who had “passed on” might be wishing to get in touch with me.
While she was with us, Madame attended a radio broadcast that I was doing. I sang the aria from La Traviata with the recitative “Ah, fors’è lui,” which leads to the very difficult “Sempre Libera.” There is an à cappella cadenza before the main aria begins. My pitch was usually flawless, but because Madame was in the audience, I tried too hard to sing correctly for her, and I began listening to my own sound. The result was that when I finished the cadenza, I landed a halftone high. As the orchestra picked up the melody, I realized that I was sharp. My mother, who was also in the audience, berated me for making the mistake. I’m sure she wanted me to shine for Madame as much as I did. I was mortified that I had goofed, especially as this had been a live radio broadcast. I was as much my own critic as anyone else.
Madame rose to my defense.
“Be gentle with her, Barbara, she sang beautifully. She was trying so hard; you have to be a little kinder. She’s only a young girl.”
Later, Madame said to me, “Your mother was inappropriate with you. I thought you sang well.”
I had never sung sharp before, but I learned to watch my pitch even more closely from then on. I was forever grateful to Madame for her kind words.